Riding Lucifer's Line

Ranger Deaths along the Texas-Mexico Border

Bob Alexander

Publication Year: 2013

The Texas-Mexico border is trouble. Haphazardly splashing across the meandering Rio Grande into Mexico is—or at least can be—risky business, hazardous to one’s health and well-being. Kirby W. Dendy, the Chief of Texas Rangers, corroborates the sobering reality: “As their predecessors for over one hundred forty years before them did, today’s Texas Rangers continue to battle violence and transnational criminals along the Texas-Mexico border.” In Riding Lucifer’s Line, Bob Alexander, in his characteristic storytelling style, surveys the personal tragedies of twenty-five Texas Rangers who made the ultimate sacrifice as they scouted and enforced laws throughout borderland counties adjacent to the Rio Grande. The timeframe commences in 1874 with formation of the Frontier Battalion, which is when the Texas Rangers were actually institutionalized as a law enforcing entity, and concludes with the last known Texas Ranger death along the border in 1921. Alexander also discusses the transition of the Rangers in two introductory sections: “The Frontier Battalion Era, 1874-1901” and “The Ranger Force Era, 1901-1935,” wherein he follows Texas Rangers moving from an epochal narrative of the Old West to more modern, technological times. Written absent a preprogrammed agenda, Riding Lucifer’s Line is legitimate history. Adhering to facts, the author is not hesitant to challenge and shatter stale Texas Ranger mythology. Likewise, Alexander confronts head-on many of those critical Texas Ranger histories relying on innuendo and gossip and anecdotal accounts, at the expense of sustainable evidence—writings often plagued with a deficiency of rational thinking and common sense. Riding Lucifer’s Line is illustrated with sixty remarkable old-time photographs. Relying heavily on archived Texas Ranger documents, the lively text is authenticated with more than one thousand comprehensive endnotes.

Cover

Title Page, Copyright Page

Contents

Foreword

Across three centuries now the history of Texas Rangers has been
interwoven with the history of the U.S.-Mexican Border. The Border
is a convention, a state of mind, not an unalterable physical reality,
but a line on the map that affects people’s lives at many levels and in
many ways. ...

Preface & Acknowledgments

The Texas-Mexico border is trouble. Like a Black Widow seductress
the borderland is at the same time alluring, deceitful—and heartless.
Haphazardly splashing across the meandering Rio Grande into Mexico
is—or at least can be—risky business, hazardous to one’s health
and well-being. ...

Introduction to Part I - The Frontier Battalion Era, 1874–1901

Setting the chronological and geographical stage seems but obligatory
before tackling the challenge of recounting true-life Texas
Ranger stories within an anthology. By and large it is acknowledged
that birth of the Texas Rangers—as a legit law enforcement
agency—can be traced to 1874 ...

Part I - Photo Gallery Texas Ranger Hall of Fame & Museum

Chapter 1. Sonny Smith, 1875

Sonny Smith’s death earned him distinction. It was not a highly
sought-for spot in the Lone Star State’s overall history, but nevertheless
a unique spot. The seventeen-year-old Ranger was the youngest
Texas peace officer to forfeit his life in the line of duty—by gunfire.1 ...

Chapter 2. John E. McBride and Conrad E. Mortimer,1877

The earthly life of Texas Ranger Sonny Smith had been snuffed out
near one end of Lucifer’s Line. For this narrative the geographical
setting moves upstream to an arena just as wild and woolly, but much
farther removed from the Texas seat of government. ...

Chapter 3. Samuel “Sam” Frazier, 1878

Twenty-four-year-old Sam Frazier, a North Carolinian from Randolph
County by birth, was one of those privates in John B. Tays’
detachment of Texas Rangers, having enlisted on November 21, 1877.
Swearing his oath at San Elizario, Frazier tendered his horse for the
required neutral appraisal. ...

Chapter 4. George R. “Red” Bingham, 1880

Bad news would break from the border country. Reverberations
scorched across Texas in a heartbeat, well, in the pulsations of a
telegrapher’s fast-tapping finger. Outlaws were on the loose in far
West Texas. And, they were a nasty set indeed. ...

Chapter 5. Frank Sieker, 1885

For genealogical lineage few families come near matching the contributions
to Texas Ranger history as do the Siekers. Four of Dr.
Edward Armon Sieker’s sons would—at one time or another—enlist
in the Frontier Battalion’s memorable Company D, a frontline unit
with more than its fair share of ultimate sacrifices. ...

Chapter 6. Charles H. V. Fusselman, 1890

John Wayne and Jeff Bridges playing the part of Deputy U.S. Marshal
Rooster Cogburn undeniably owned a plateful of true grit—on
the Silver Screen. For a catchy stage moniker the subject of this six-shooter
vignette may have very well been outnamed, but not outgunned. ...

Chapter 7. John F. Gravis, 1890

Downstream from its flow through gigantic Presidio County the
Rio Grande makes its most prominent dip—the big bend—in the
extreme southern section of Brewster County. Both counties mutually
share geographical designation: The Big Bend Country. The seat
of government for Presidio County is Marfa, sixty miles due north
from the river.1 ...

Chapter 8. Robert E. Doaty, 1892

Coincidence is astonishing on the one hand, perplexing on the other.
At this late date with names already hand-carved into marble markers
memorializing fallen peace officers, this rundown will accept written
tradition and use the name Doaty as it appears in certain Texas
Ranger records, though his real birth name was Robert E. Doughty.1 ...

Chapter 9. Frank Jones, 1893

The maelstrom of calls to establish a Texas Ranger presence in El Paso
County was mounting as the third year of the 1890s opened. Sitting
members of the El Paso County grand jury had submitted their petition
to the governor on the last day of January requesting protection
from “the depredations of criminal characters who flit across
the frontier.”1 ...

Chapter 10. Joseph McKidrict, 1894

New Year’s Day of 1894 opened with an ear-splitting bang for some
Company D Rangers stationed in West Texas. Handling firearms, an
everyday task for career lawmen, is best carried out with due caution.
Private Alonzo “Lon” Van Oden carelessly mishandled his Colt’s
six-shooter that first day of January. ...

Chapter 11. Ernest St. Leon, 1898

Looks can be deceiving. In police work it is smart not to be fooled by
appearance; the wolf may be wearing a sheep’s clothing. Harmlessness
or dangerousness cannot be accurately registered with a glance.
Baby-faced Ernest St. Leon is paradigm. ...

Introduction to Part II - The Ranger Force Era, 1901–1935

From time to time citing random facts can prove thought-provoking.
Markedly, such is the case within the framework of Riding Lucifer’s
Line. As noted in closing the preceding chapter, Ernest “Diamond
Dick” St. Leon was the last nineteenth-century Texas Ranger killed
in action. ...

Part II - Photo Gallery Texas Ranger Hall of Fame & Museum

Chapter 12. W. Emmett Robuck, 1902

Emmett Robuck’s family tree was fashioned from sturdy oak. Service
in the Confederacy had claimed the life of his paternal grandfather.
Emmett’s father Elias A. “Berry” Robuck was a first-rate stockman,
having early on gathered and trailed cattle into the faraway Rocky
Mountain country while but a lad of sixteen years. ...

Chapter 13. Thomas Jefferson Goff, 1905

Although he would become a genuine Lone Star State cowboy, Thomas
Jefferson “Tom” Goff could not lay claim to Texas as his birthplace.
Tom Goff came into the world at Keetsville, Barry County, Missouri.
Keetsville no longer registers on the roadmap. ...

Chapter 14. Quirl Bailey Carnes, 1910

Texas history of the family Carnes can be written in blood. Their
epic story of Lone Star adventures is punctuated with bullets. The
oldest of three law-enforcing brothers, Alfred Burton Carnes, held
twenty-year tenure as the elected sheriff in Wilson County, southeastern
neighbor of the Alamo City in Bexar County.1 ...

Chapter 15. Grover Scott Russell, 1913

Seesawing back to the other end of the Texas/Mexican border is
where another sad story will in due course play out. Stephenville,
Erath County, Texas, was the birthplace of Grover Scott Russell, popularly
known as Scott, but he would earn Ranger pay in faraway West
Texas, primarily scouting along Lucifer’s Line in El Paso County. ...

Chapter 16. Eugene B. Hulen, 1915

The native Texan warranting a spot in this coverage of bloodshed
along the Rio Grande was product of a border county—just not a
Mexican border county. Eugene B. Hulen had been born in Cooke
County (Gainesville) adjacent to the Red River, the dividing line separating
Texas and Oklahoma. ...

Chapter 17. Robert Lee Burdett, 1915

Hardly had two weeks passed since the murders of Ranger Hulen and
Inspector Sitter when more appalling news would break along the
river. And it, too, would bear sad tidings for the Texas Rangers of
Company B, the unit captained by James Monroe Fox headquartered
at Marfa. ...

Chapter 18. William P. Stillwell, 1918

More so than any other, 1918 would prove to be the deadliest year
for Rangers scouting the Texas-Mexico border. Adhering to the earlier
pledge that this volume would focus on Rangers dying with their
boots on, there will not be chapter-length digressions focusing on
three who passed plagued with coughs, fever, wheezing, ...

Chapter 19. Joe Robert Shaw, 1918

The day after Independence Day 1918 twenty-eight-year-old Joe
Robert Shaw laid aside his leggings and catch-rope, intent on shifting
career gears from cowboy to cop: A Texas Ranger. What his wife
thought about the switch would be but guesswork, but there’s little
doubt she, as the mother of two, vacillated between pride and apprehension. ...

Chapter 21. Delbert “Tim” Timberlake, 1918

Wilson County, as has been noted, produced more than her fair
share of Texas Rangers. Edgar Timberlake was one. Delbert “Tim”
Timberlake, Edgar’s younger brother, was another. Born on the
twelfth day of September 1884 Tim Timberlake aspired to the life of
a South Texas cowboy. ...

Chapter 22. T. E. Paul Perkins, 1918

Jessie and Nannie Perkins were the proud parents of two sons: James
Clark, the youngest, and T. E. Paul, more affectionately known as Ellzey.
The boys could claim status as native Texans, born not along the
international border but in Milam County, not too terribly far south
of Waco in Central Texas. ...

Chapter 23. William M. Alsobrook, 1919

Historically tracking outlaws commonly opens wide the doorways to
unanswered questions. Poking around in Ranger files pertaining to
William M. Alsobrook likewise conjures up more room for query than
it does backstopping clear-cut resolution. ...

Chapter 24. Joseph B. Buchanan, 1921

Joseph Benjamin Buchanan was a Bosque County boy of sorts, tracing
his earliest roots to the tiny community of Iredell, northwest of
the county seat at Meridian, Texas.1 His parents and several older
siblings had made the migration from Virginia to Central Texas traveling
first by train, then with two wagons and a buggy. ...

Afterword

Fortunately, in a bizarre fashion, the killing of Joe Ben Buchanan
was—at least to date—the last Texas Ranger death on the line.
Regrettably, murdering lawmen up and down the Texas-Mexico border
continues to this day. Why is such a statistic so heavily weighted
against the Texas Rangers for years, and then radically tapers off? ...

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